Camelot - Cracked!
by K. A. Carlyle
Summary: Parody version of Merlin's adventures in Camelot...owed entirely to caffeine/chocolate overload and lots of stress. Don't take me too seriously. Each episode is rewritten - HumorFic style! Rated T for language. I own nothing but the writing.


**A/N: Okay, so...**

**I was just reading a bunch of Once Upon a Time parodies when a thought sprang to my mind, and Merlin and I shot inter-dimensional sideways glances at each other...and then this was born. I made myself laugh reading back over it, not gonna lie. Just go with the satire, okay? It's a joke. ;)**

**This is my caffeine-and-chocolate-induced story for the day. Hope you guys like the result, because I'm pretty happy with it. **

**Without further ado, I present to you: Crack on Wheels!**

* * *

**_Once Upon a Time, there was a young boy named Harry Potter, who's movie and bestselling book series became so popular that BBC decided to make a television series entirely dedicated to the boy, who was born with supreme and uncontrollable magical powers and a destiny involving a total jerk that tries to kill him multiple times throughout his career. BBC was very proud of this young character, whom they gave a scarring past, questionable parentage, a mop of shaggy black hair, and an adorable british accent, then sent away to hone his magical abilities at a faraway castle. Except they misnamed the child Merlin for copyright reasons, and they do hope to this day that J. K. Rowling does not sue. _**

**_At any rate, this young boy with extraordinary magical ability was given an invincible sword (to be used only by the worthy), a dragon, an old mentor with an abundance of white hair, and an arch-nemesis with suspiciously pale skin. You know...all kinds of neat [Harry Potter] stuff. But all this didn't happen until much, much later...after it all began. So why don't we take a quick step back to the beginning?_**

* * *

"Where is this bloody castle?" Merlin muttered to himself. "I've checked the Marau-er, I mean, the totally normal map I was given by my mysterious parents, and it doesn't say anything about a 'Camelot' around here. Maybe it's just my lack of mental ability, which will surely play a majorly recurring role in this series." Folding up the map and tucking it back into his bag, the black-haired boy loosened his perpetual red scarf and started up the dramatic-looking rise in front of him, assuming that it had to lead somewhere good.

Nope_,_ nocastles. Just a bunch of styrofoam mountains and more gravel walkway. Somehow, Merlin continued to smile as he went along the path, regardless of the fact that he'd been walking for the past five hours straight.

Merlin wasn't entirely sure where to go from here, but he knew that he had to be getting closer, since he could swear he heard Ollivander speaking in his ear and dramatic music playing somewhere far off. He continued on, following the sound, and muttered to himself, "I'd better find this castle soon. The credits are about to run, and we need some kind of relevant plot point before everyone turns this off." He rounded the bend from his walk through the woods and greenscreen mountains to see, not a moment too late, the Vast and Magnificent _Château de Pierrefonds_™ sprawled out in the valley beneath him.

"Ah. What a strategic place to hide a castle," Merlin announced, grinning down at it. "I always heard that taking the low ground was the best way to win in the inevitable fights that will eventually take place here." With that, he started off down the hill, too painfully enthusiastic to notice John Hurt's string of insults following him at how he'd interrupted his speech for the title sequence.

* * *

Staring around at the scenery surrounding him within the surprisingly easy-to-breach castle walls, Merlin announced cheerily, "it's a good thing I'm not a suicide bomber! Gee, I hope those guards are always so easy to get past without the use of any unfair play constituting magic. I'll definitely need that later when I'm sneaking out to meet my totally illegal druid girlfriend."

Merlin suddenly came to a halt in front of a large crowd of people, using his Overly-Large Ear Powers to listen in on what was happening. "Oh, how well-timed!" he announced. "There appears to be a major plot reveal and ceremony happening just as I arrive with this suspicious-looking camera crew that's been tailing me all day!" He quickly pushed past several other peasants, none of which had scarves as cool as his, and craned his neck to see the man standing on the balcony above him, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Anthony Head.

"Pay good attention, now!" the doppleganger king announced. "I have an important announcement to make that will be necessary for you to understand the entire remainder of this episode!"

Everyone looked up with wide eyes, completely ignoring Merlin for a moment. The camera crew seemed focused on the woman in the top window of the tower, who had somehow managed to procure a Medieval curling iron and mascara.

"This man on the chopping block in front of me here has been using magic. Which I hate. Off with his head!" the king announced. "I've always wanted to say that. Oh, and by the way...I'm Uther Pendragon. Now, for more plot-thickening...I'm going to go over the history of Camelot now, in case you had missed that in the lifetimes you've been living here. I'm the greatest king alive, I captured a dragon, destroyed magic, have been the monarch of this crappily-placed castle for twenty years, and that's far too long for all this peace and lack of magic. It's like I'm inviting someone bad to step up and stop me. Any questions?"

An old woman appeared magically from the back of the crowd. "Um...yes, excuse me? That man you just killed was my son. I'd like to ask where I can go to sue you in this land."

Uther frowned. "I'm afraid I don't understand. But this sounds like sorcery to me! Seize her, badly-trained guards!"

The woman sighed. "A plague o' both your houses! A pl-no, that's not right. I mean to say...I'll get you, my pretties! And you're little dog, too!"

"I hope you're not talking about my son, Ar-I mean, the mysterious child of mine that can't be named until midway through the episode for plot reasons. We'd hate for any of the fans to start shipping Merthur prematurely. Wait...what was this conversation about, again?"

The old woman shrugged. "Beats me. But I'm going to try and ultimately fail at making a dramatic exit now! This scene may have seemed pointless, but don't worry...I'll be back!"

Merlin, who had done an excellent job of looking horrified throughout this entire exchange, raised an eyebrow as some sketchy special effects were done to make the woman disappear in a puff of magical tornado winds.

The crowd of extras began to disperse, and Merlin walked away along with them, completely ignoring Uther's hatred of magical people such as himself to keep the plot moving.

"Um, hello, badly-trained guards? Could you please tell me where I could find my future mentor, Dumble-I mean, Gaius, before I burst out laughing at your ridiculous helmets?" he asked.

One of the guards muttered something that the microphone didn't catch, then gestured towards the stairs behind him without asking Merlin any questions about his morality or motives.

Merlin sauntered jauntily up the stairs, incredibly happy that he was going to live in the spare room of an old man he'd never even seen before. Grinning like an idiot, he pushed open the door and called out, "hello? Mysterious old man named Gaius? Is something terrifying going to jump out at me from behind this door now?"

No one answered, so Merlin simply let himself in and wandered through the room as if he'd done it a hundred times before. Seeing an old man in a long, easy-to-trip-over, suspiciously-wizard-like robe standing on a dangerously thin balcony above him, he decided it was a good idea to scream out his name and scare the crap out of him.

Gaius flailed his arms and toppled backwards through the strangely rickety balcony, just as Merlin discovered his amazing ability to stop time. Merlin's eyes flashed a gaudy shade of liquid gold as he suddenly discovered how to master the laws of space and dimension, a trait which you'd be surprised how few people noticed. Thankfully, there just so happened to be a bed nearby, so Merlin moved it with his mind-blowing amount of untrained, volatile magical powers and caught the unnamed old man in the wizard robes as if he did this daily.

"What the hell was that?" the old man demanded, staggering to his feet with a stink face appearing beneath his scraggly grey hair.

"Um...Jedi mind tricks? No, that's the wrong movie...wait, are you referring to me scaring the crap out of you, or the other thing? Because the first part was pretty easy, if you want-"

The old man turned the Evil Stink Eye of Death on Merlin, and frowned deeply. "I'm talking about you knowing magic! Where did you learn that?"

"I was born with it!" Merlin protested, cringing under the awesome power of the Stink Eye.

"You can't simply be born with magic, boy!" the old man, who was assumingly Gaius, replied.

"Sure I can! I have a letter from Johnny Capps, here. I'm the main protagonist!"

"Oh," Gaius announced, seeming surprised. "Well, then, in that case, come on in. I don't need any credentials or anything, we've got great security here. I'm sure you're who you say you are."

Merlin went quickly to his room and threw his bag full of red and blue scarves onto the chair in the corner, then climbed up to the window in the wall that would mysteriously move different places later on in the series until your eyes hurt from trying to follow it all the time. Gazing out in wonder at the greenscreen in front of him, Merlin knew that this would be an excellent five seasons.

Meanwhile, in the other room, Gaius was mentally reading the dramatic plot-revealing letter from Johnny Caps...er, that is, Merlin's mother, Hunith. He put on his glasses as she read and wrote to fill time before the commercial break, then sat back and frowned deeply. He could sense a disturbance in the force.

* * *

Downstairs in the dark and foreboding Hallway of Evil, Morgana the secret Pendragon was staring wistfully out the window as she dreamed of secretly running away to live with her fans, who may or may not have cared for her more than her current family.

Uther, with his excellent tradition of bad timing, chose that moment to walk in. Morgana looked up, gracing him with a bittersweet smile. "Well, if it isn't my least favorite person on the planet! To what do I owe the pleasure of your incursion?"

Uther frowned at her, looking like he was about to ground her. "You weren't at dinner, missy. Have you been avoiding your famil-I mean, us, your guardians, because that's totally all I am to you?"

Morgana looked surprised. "Can't you just tell them that I'm secretly your daughter?"

"Nah. We'll save that for later in the series, when people start to get bored."

"Whatever, Uther. It's about time for you to storm out now...this conversation has to be quick, remember? We've only got an hour here. Need to move the plot along."

"Too right." With a dramatic swish of his cloak, Uther turned and exited the dark and forbidding Hallway of Evil.

* * *

Far away in a skimpy tent in the foreboding woods, a beautiful woman known as Camelot's greatest singer was humming indiscreetly to herself as she waited to be attacked by a vicious dragon or angry hellhound. "It's a shame I'm only here to deepen the plot," she sighed to her mirror. A loud crunching sound in the woods outside made her look up. "What could that be? It's not as if I've made my campsite too obvious, with my blazing fire or badly-trained guards!"

A shadow flickered over the outside of the tent, and the woman looked up as the creepy old hag from earlier appeared in the open flap of the tent. "I told you I'd be back!" She screeched wickedly.

The woman looked confused. "Oh, no, a foul creature has come to find me in the woods!"

"You knew this would happen, you senseless girl." The old woman blinked.

"True, but I need to act dumb so you can kill me and take your revenge on Uther and his do-I mean, Son-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, before we hit the commercial break."

"Fair enough." The old hag hissed out some convincing gibberish, stabbing at a hunk of straw with a needle several times for effect, and watched emotionlessly as the younger woman fell to the floor. "Wonderful! Now I get to be young and beautiful again! That's certainly not a cliché villain plot." She sat down at the woman's table, uttered some more useless Old English, and through the works of some relatively painful CGI, transformed into the woman whose corpse she hadn't bothered to hide.

As a last essential plot point, the woman picked up the previously mentioned mirror and glanced into it, frowning deeply. "So much for inner beauty!" she cackled shrilly.

* * *

The next morning, the Obviously-Not-Harry-Potter warlock in the court physician's storeroom woke up to the sound of Ollivander calling him down to the basement.

Confused, Merlin sat up and looked around him. Wait...had the window moved in the middle of the night? He could have sworn it was on the _other _wall...

"Guess it's time to go do something relevant to my career as a sorcerer now," Merlin announced, giving a massive stretch. "Long day ahead...being this awesome is tough work." With that, he grabbed a new scarf out of his bag and headed out the door.

"Where have you been?" Gaius demanded. "Do you oversleep like this all the time? How are you supposed to miserably assist me with physician's duties while you're dreaming about Becoming Minister of Magic until ten-thirty?"

Merlin looked surprised. "It's not that late! And I'd watch my accusations there, Dumb-I mean, extremely caring old mentor man whom I have no familial relationship to, but who favors me like a son regardlessly!"

Gaius sighed. "It's okay. I made you some useless crap to eat. I'd suggest you eat it."

"But, Gaiusssss..." Merlin whined, "you know what mother put in her letter to you about feeding me glue..."

Gaius blinked. "I suppose it won't be that easy to get rid of you, will it?" He handed him two vials of potion. "This is completely irrelevant to the plot, but take these to their respective owners. I need you to be my delivery boy for a while while I sit here in my Underground Magical Meth Lab and secretly practice sorcery like the hypocrite that I am."

Merlin shrugged. "Sounds good." Without another word, he absconded with a magically-appearing ham sandwich and ran down the hallway.

Merlin wandered the castle grounds for a full five seconds before finding the doors to the respective patients' rooms. Having delivered his lading, along with some poorly-conveyed directions for dosage, he quickly headed off to wander strategically through the most exciting part of town. _I'm going to ill-advisedly pick a fight with some jerk who is coincidentally the most powerful guy in the village now!_ Merlin thought brightly.

Uther's dog was out taking himself for a walk just outside the castle walls. "Someone entertain me," he sighed. "I'm bored..."

Merlin stepped up just in time to see the Nameless Wonder begin throwing knives at nearby serving boys for amusement. "Glad I don't have such a useless and monotonous job as that one!" he announced to himself. "There's nothing in the world that sounds more idiotic and long-suffering than working for a guy like that. Also...something tells me that this sentence will be painfully ironic in more ways than one later on."

Merlin stepped out into the young man's way, holding up his hands. "That's enough! You should stop that, before I report you to the badly-trained guards!"

Uther's dog whistled in mock fear. "What are you going to do? Tell your mommy the other boys aren't playing nice?"

"What's the matter? Didn't yours ever teach you that you're a man, not an ass?"

In one fatal swoop, Merlin's arms were pinioned behind his back by the blonde man. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with? No, wait...of course you don't, that would mean you're even more oblivious than me, and that would totally undermine the point of this show..."

"'Who I'm dealing with?' Who do you think you are, the king?" Merlin monotoned, setting up perfectly for the major character introduction that all the fangirls in the audience had been waiting for.

"No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. I mean, seriously...how could you even ask that? I don't even look related to him or anything...I mean, I'm tall, blonde, attractive, good with the ladies...wait, what were we talking about, again?"

"Who you think you are," Merlin responded, hanging limply from Arthur's firm grip on his arms.

"Oh, that. Well, I'm not the king, but I _am _his dog...er...son. Arthur." On the last word, the prince's grip on Merlin's forearm yanked upwards painfully. Stars dotted the warlock's eyes, and he gritted his teeth. Arthur simply smiled wryly.

"I see you picked up on the family charm," Merlin muttered.

* * *

That night, using the eerie-ness of the dark for dramatic effect, the Lady Helen/Undermined Old Hag/Terrible Mother Figure of Doom arrived outside the castle with her badly-trained guards, looking as sinister as ever. She glanced around at the inexplicable puddles scattered throughout the courtyard from the nonexistent rain earlier, and noticed her reflection with a jolt. "Clearly this will prove to be a relevant plot point later on, but for now, I'll just go with it and hope I don't have any mirrors in my room." With a sigh, she finished her little soliloquy and followed the guards up the front steps.

"Helen, darling!" Uther greeted cheerily, standing from his seat at the head of the ridiculously long Throne Room. Roughly two minutes later, The Lady Helen/Undermined Old Hag/Terrible Mother Figure of Doom finished her walk down the hall to reach him, politely ignoring Morgana's yawn as she leaned over to check the time on Gwen's watch.

"This scene is too long already from all that walking," Lady Helen wheezed, clutching at the stitch in her side. "But, my good king, it's been far too long since I've seen you, so I suppose was can forgive that..." The Undermined Old Woman in her wrinkled her nose at the thought of touching such a hideous form of sludge as Uther Pendragon, but she allowed him to hold her hands in welcoming for a moment. Morgana yawned again, this time more loudly, and indiscreetly scuffed a heeled shoe against the floor.

"Well, if that's it, then, I guess I'll be headed back upstairs..."

With that, she began the two-minute walk down the Ridiculously Long Throne Room, with Gwen trailing closely behind her.

* * *

Meanwhile, back with the drastically overused shot of the Magnificent Château de Pierrefonds™...

Ollivander was getting impatient again. _Merlin! You haven't bought a wand from me yet, Merlin! How am I meant to send you off to become the greatest warlock in the world without one? Merlin!_ _Don't tell me you're only catching one of every ten words in this monologue! MERLIN!_

Merlin sat up, blinking his bleary eyes, and glanced out the window of his prison cell (courtesy of Prince of Lapdogs, Arthur Pendragon). He got to his feet and shook straw out of his hair, just in time for Gaius to walk in, as if he'd planned Merlin's waking himself.

"What timing!" Merlin commended, picking a bit of straw off of his jacket sleeve. "Right as I wake up and everything! You couldn't have come to get me yesterday, could you? Nooo, I had to sleep in this dump all night..."

"You should be grateful! I managed to get you out of here by pulling a few strings, and you're pretty much free from this place with minimal embarrassment and brutal destruction of your own pride!"

Any trace of good humor that had been there previously was suddenly gone from Merlin's face, leaving him with a ghostly pallor. "Minimal?" he croaked out.

* * *

"Um, hey there..."

Merlin looked up from his spot in the stocks to meet the eyes of a surprisingly well-dressed peasant woman beside him. "Oh, hello. Who are you?"

"Er, I'm Gwen. Morgana's maid? I've been stalking you since you got here." When he looked confused, she corrected quickly, "watching! Er...I mean, I saw what you did there, with the standing up to Arthur and all."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but now doesn't really seem like the best time to start flirting with me because you think I'm brave or whatever."

Gwen blinked. "Brave? No, I think you're entirely stupid."

Merlin had nothing to say to fill the awkward silence, in which all of his 'admirers' had seemingly vanished. "Thank you!" he roared sarcastically to no one in particular. "Thank you for letting me finish my conversation!"

That was right about when a tomato came sailing through the air towards him and hit him in the eye. He shook it off quickly, and turned around...but when Merlin looked up again, Gwen was gone.

* * *

By the time Merlin returned to Gaius' Underground Magical Meth Lab of Hypocriticism, he was picking bits of rotten tomato as well as straw from his hair. "Curses! What was Gaius thinking, agreeing to that? Besides, tomatoes are fruits! I thought those people were distinctly told to throw only vegetables? Not to mention those children with the banana cream pies...where did those even come from?"

Across the grounds of the Magnificent Château de Pierrefonds™, Prince Arthur pushed a large, jingling sack of gold (which was indiscreetly labeled with massive dollar signs) into the castle cook's hand. "Tell no one."

Aware of none of this, Merlin continued to walk back to Gaius' Lab.

"Care for some pie?" the old physician asked, looking up as Merlin entered. "Arthur sent it to me. Said it was an apology for me having to deal with a prat like you all day."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "No, thank you." As he walked past, Gaius' sleeve caught on the pie pan at the edge of the table and knocked it off-balance; within the blink of an eye, Merlin's highly volatile and perfectly-mastered magical powers of levitation kicked in, and he caught it halfway to the floor.

"Put that down!" Gaius announced shrilly, glancing around as is Uther were hiding in the rafters, waiting to swoop down with a knife to cut Merlin down for being a sorcerer. Merlin panicked...and the pie flew up through the air and landed conveniently across Gaius' face.

The old man roared in anger. "You fool! I was going to give you a particularly useful piece of information involving the Monstrous Dragon Uther has locked up beneath the castle, but I won't now, because you've made me mad! Go do something useful...take this tonic to Lady Helen to help her with her voice!"

Merlin juggled the potion as Gaius tossed it to him, then finally managed to secure it in one hand. "Yes, Gaius!" he darted out of the room as quickly as he could go, ducking as the empty pie tin flew over his head and collided with the doorframe.

* * *

After another five agonizing seconds of searching the castle, Merlin found his way directly to Lady Helen's door, walking straight into her unguarded room as if this were normal practice for a man who had recently arrived in Camelot with no credentials, and subsequently been arrested by the prince.

"I'm just going to leave this here!" Merlin called out loudly. When no one answered, he considered looting some of the lady Helen's _moola_, but stopped short as her footsteps suddenly sprang up outside the doorway.

"Everyone in this castle has the timing from hell," Merlin said decidedly. He shuffled quickly through a few of her things, then straightened and turned to walk out.

"What are you doing in my room? You're not meant to discover my evil plot until the end of the episode," Lady Helen frowned.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Merlin responded quickly. "Er...I suppose absconding with some cash-o-la is out of the question?"

"Highly."

"Well, then, in that case...I just needed to drop off this singing tonic of some kind from Gaius."

The woman looked confused. "I didn't ask for any such thing. What will it do?"

Merlin shrugged. "Internal autotune? I don't really know." He quickly handed her the potion, seeming to think that she wasn't able to pick it up herself from the dresser he'd left it on, and went out.

* * *

_**End of The Dragon's Call - Part One.**_

**Sorry if the writing style is a bit strange. I know it's choppy, different, filled with long words that look awkward with the dialogue, and there are way too many run-on sentences, but that's also kind of the point. I don't want it to start making too much sense. If you like it, I'll post part two of the pilot, and maybe even a few more episodes. Thanks for taking the time to read my mess of gibberish. **

**- K. A. Carlyle**


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